Saturday, December 5, 2015

A Lack of Motivation

Winter has never been a good time of year for me. Everything
I do feels like drudgery. The cold makes me more lethargic and sleepy and life
can seem purposeless. Schoolwork I might have enjoyed earlier in the term is
reduced to a need-to-do status, and any hobbies that I have take a backseat to
all the other responsibilities that arise. My days’ work seems to consist
mostly of miscellaneous tasks, homework, and self-care activities like going
for a jog or making dinner. My motivation to do anything more than what needs
to be done is gone.

By the end of the term I’ve generally developed a certain
level of disinterest in my classes. Perhaps I’m still interested in the subject
material, but I’ve become annoyed with the schedule or bored with the homework
assignments. At the beginning of the term I can look past disinteresting or
frustrating aspects of a class, but by the end of the term they become
unbearably obvious. So, at this point in the term my life revolves mostly
around finishing my homework as quickly and efficiently as possible, and then
using the left over time to clear off the rest of my to do list. My days are
monotonous and uninspiring for the most part, and most mornings it’s difficult
to find a reason to want to work on
my homework. I do it only because I have to.

The cold weather outside this time of year only makes things
worse.

To get past my lack of motivation, I try to come up with a
personal project that I can look forward to working on at the end of the day.
Having something like a project that I want to work on helps me feel more
motivated to finish my homework, and knock off my other to-do list items. I
have something I’m working towards, and the sooner I get things done, the more
time I have to work on my project.

However, coming up with a personal project as a method of
motivating myself to finish my homework has backfired on me in the past. If I’m
really excited about working on my project, I sometimes end up staring at my
homework assignment, daydreaming about my project rather than finishing my
homework. To eliminate this problem, I now set a designated time to work toward
or a set of tasks to complete before I can work on my project. The whole point
of having a personal project is to motivate me to finish my homework, not to
make homework more difficult.

With the end of the term approaching, my lack of motivation
remains a constant in my life, as does my case of wintertime blues. But the end
of the term is nearly over, which means a new beginning; the next term is right
ahead. I just have to make it through a few more weeks. During those weeks I
can take small steps on a project of my choosing, something that I’ll really
enjoy doing. So even when the sky is dark at five o’clock, or the weather
outside is frightful, I can continue working on my projects; both school and
non-school related. And I can enjoy the fact that I’m doing something that I
want to do and that I have the chance to follow my interests.